HEAD LESSONS

http://burningrepublicstate.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/head-lessons/

This is very old news, but it involves two critical components of our nation-building process that have never been definitively resolved: inter-ethnic relations and reconciling religion in secular space.

Rebels with a Faith (transcript) documents the saga of four Primary 1 schoolgirls who were suspended for wearing the tudung in January 2002. Against the post-September 11 backdrop of heightened religious tensions, the headscarf evolved into a potent symbol that will either ‘threaten Singapore’s racial harmony’ or provide ‘assurance that when (the girl) grows up, she can become a modest person.’

Law Kam-Yee (2003) quoted then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong as saying that the ‘the practice (of girls donning the tudung in schools) was theoretically allowable’, although with a caveat:

He explained, “this is not a ‘never never’, but I want to build a successful multi-racial society first.” Given the current ethnic landscape and international tension about Islam, it was unwise, Goh argued, to stir up any sensitive ethnic/religious issues. He further argued that “we have been functioning this way for many years: students don’t wear headscarf in school. It has worked. I think better don’t change it.” (Law, 2003, pg 53)

In the same refrain, Rebels with a Faith has Hawazi Daipi, then-Parliamentary Secretary for Education warning that allowing the tudung will fragment the common space that we have in school and invite competing demands from other communities to assert their own identities.

The Singapore Ecosystem: Balance & Fragility

The government’s portrayal of Singapore society is significant. Both Goh and Hawazi painted Singapore as a delicate ecosystem of racial communities co-existing in a fragile peace, interspersed with reserved and subdued interaction facilitated by a ‘common space’ that emphasized conformity rather than diversity.

The government’s vehemence in this episode can be traced to two paradoxical principles of its nation-building ideology: its consistent obsession with racial identities, and after evoking this racial consciousness, to establish a policy of impartiality across these racial lines.
Barr notes that the ‘Census quadratomy of CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others) is sacrosanct and the distinctiveness of these building blocks of the Singapore nation has been set in concrete’. Borrowing a term from Giddens, he notes that Singaporeans affixed with a racial profile from birth are akin to ‘culture containers’. Hence, Singaporeans, through their ‘racial categories, are associated with corresponding characteristics, such as culture, language and religion’. (Barr, 2008, page 51)

In this perspective, our nation is essentially a United Races of Singapore, which can be defined ‘as not so much the amalgam of its population of individual persons but rather the sum of the official, sharply delineated ethnic groups’. (Barr, 2008, page 9)

However, having established the racial credentials of its citizens, the government then undertake great pain to emphasize and recognize the equality of all races – a process which Barr, inspired by Cheah Boon Keng, describes as ‘multiculturalism in neutral’. (Barr, 2008, page 51)

The Common Man in the Common Space

Hence, in this United Races of Singapore, the concept of a common space attains a canonical reverence: the common space is the platform where co-existence rests upon the principle of strict equality – where people of all races interact on the same footing, notwithstanding the sensitivities, peculiarities and inherent inequalities present within and between the racial communities.

As such, in the arena of ‘common space’, conformity to the dictated standards is required, lest it opens the gate to ‘competing demands from other communities to assert their own identities’. The paradox is material: the government consciously foster and assert racial identities, yet require citizens to subdue these identities when approaching a ‘shared space’.

This model is obviously unsustainable, particularly for a country hoping to nurture a sense of nationhood. The government, for all its decade of preponderance, has made little substantive progress in inter-ethnic relations if this delicate ecosystem of co-existence is the result of its efforts. What it could claim credit for is refining a colonial framework, since the outcome seems uncannily like a modern variation of Furnivall’s ‘plural society’ – the common space of Hawazi’s parlance being a more sanitized and genial version of Furnivall’s ‘market place’.
Hence, Singapore still operates within the confines of a modern plural society, except that the kinks of overt hostility, prejudices and tension are mostly ironed out. This however still leaves behind a fragmented and stratified society.

Differences: To Play it down or Embrace?

During the course of the saga, Chua Lee Hong suggested, in a Straits Times article dated 30th January, an alternative model – one centred around the principle of diversity. Positing that tailoring school uniforms to fit religious requirements would allow children to learn, accept and appreciate diversity from a young age, her proposal was shot down by Teo Chee Hean (then-Education Minister) and Goh Chok Tong. (Law, 2003, page 56)

In terms of overcoming differences, the government clearly favour muting and playing down variations to an acceptable common denominator over accepting and embracing this diversity. However, then-Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong tried to reconcile the two alternatives.
Lee said that ‘in schools, pupils must learn about one another’s customs and traditions, and learn how to get along with one another’; however he indicated that the ‘pupils who should learn from others are (the) Malay Muslims (students)’. (Law, 2003, page 57) In the government’s conceptualization of ‘common space’, the lesson to be learned is one of conformity. Diversity is clearly only acceptable within the strict confines of the respective ‘culture containers’.

The Foreshadowing: Appeal by scripture

On a tangential note, the issue can be viewed as the inherent tension between religion and secularism. (That this angle was largely lost to the racial perspective elucidated above testifies to the culture container syndrome where the racial profile ascribes religious identity and other associated appendages, resulting in the convenient conflation of a religious issue into one of race relations. Also, the involvement of Malaysian personalities adds a further political dimension that complicated the discourse.)

This clash between religious and secular principles foreshadows the S377A parliamentary debate and Aware debacle five and seven years on, respectively. However, the method of persuasion for the religious faction in all three episodes is similar: invoking divine wisdom and falling back on argument by scripture.

Naseer, the father of one of the girls involved in the 2002 affair, mentioned that his ‘daughter’s education is as important as my faith, my religion’ and donning the tudung was to ‘practise what they’ve been taught in terms of religion’. These statements will have minimal resonance beyond a Muslim audience.

The issue at stake revolves around the freedom of religion – one guaranteed by the Constitution. However, that freedom is self-limiting, as divine revelation does not provide carte blanche to act against the interests of others. Hence, it would be more prudent to debunk the argument (which was employed by the government in a manner of speaking) that wearing the tudung was an act in excess of the freedom of religion.

Freedom for an individual can be reasonably circumscribed if it provokes harm and detriment to the interests of others; in this particular instance, an act of religious piety can be disallowed if it impinges or threatens the rights of others. A seven year-old clad in tudung hardly qualifies.

The Religious Dance

Interestingly, the government’s handling of the tudung episode stood in marked contrast to its approach to S377A. In the former, the government comes in (unfairly) against religious expression, however its position on S377A suggests a tacit assent (unfairly, still) to religious expression.

Central to the decision to retain S377A is Lee Hsien Loong’s reasoning that ‘Singapore is basically a conservative society’ (23rd October 2007, Parliamentary Hansard). This sop to the masses indicated that the government favoured the morality afforded by the Bible and Koran over the authority of reason.

And as the Aware saga illuminated, evoking the principles of the Bible and Koran provides little substance (but a whole lot of rancour) in a public multi-religious discussion. In the words of David Marshall, ‘freedom is my right to swing my arms short of my neighbour’s nose’. (Melanie Chew, 1996)

As much as homosexuality is a swing of the arm short of the noses of the religious conservatives, it still remains that it was not an outright punch. Affront is not persecution, deviancy does not deprive the “right to profess and practice his religion, and to propogate it’. (Article 15 (2), Constitution of the Republic of Singapore)

While the nation tries to find an amicable resolution to this perennial tension, it would be wise to remember that the multicultural reality will inevitably give rise to alleged offences to particular sensitivities. The key is bilateral acceptance and appreciation: Muslims are at liberty to decline pork and alcohol, while Hindus hold the prerogative of abstaining from beef. However, translating these religious tenets into a blanket ban for the society at large is patently unfair – and so is expecting them to abandon their religious tenets.

There is hope for that multicultural understanding and solidarity, if we are brave enough to pour our respective culture containers and become into one huge vat.

-(sources)
1. Rebels with a Faith. SBS/Dateline, 2002. 31 July 2009. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM_kteRlwQs
2. The Tudung Affair. Singapore Window. 31 July 2009. http://www.singapore-window.org/sw02/020327sb.htm
3. Kam-Yee Law. The Myth of Multiracialism In Post-9/11 Singapore: The Tudung Incident. New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 5.1 (June): 51-71. Available at http://www.nzasia.org.nz/downloads/NZJAS-June03/5.1_4.pdf
4. Barr, M. and Skrbis, Z. Constructing Singapore: Elitism, Ethnicity and the Nation-Building Project. Denmark: NISA Press (2008)
5. Melanie Chew. Leaders of Singapore. Singapore: Singapore Resource Press, 2006.6. BBC News. Mufti puts school over scarves. 6 February 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1804470.stm